An energy trade association which includes Apple, energy storage maker AES and solar giants SunPower and First Solar in its leadership has welcomed the proposal by US energy regulator, FERC, to remove barriers to participation in wholesale markets for energy storage and distributed energy resources (DERs).
A liberal arts college in California will get a 1MW/2MWh energy storage system from Green Charge that could save the facility US$800,000 over its lifetime.
There have been modest year-on-year increases in the number of PV installers in Germany and the UK offering energy storage to their customers, according to a survey by EUPD Research.
Last year was a “seminal year” for energy storage, where the technology moved from “dream to reality”, according to impact investor Nancy Pfund, one of the earliest backers to Tesla and SolarCity.
The Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA), an organisation comprising the municipal utilities of 10 cities and one irrigation district, has ordered a potential 1MW of ice battery storage systems from Ice Energy.
Financial services giant Morgan Stanley has anticipated that the US energy storage market will grow faster than current consensus expectations, while Deloitte has earmarked the technology for exponential growth – although not perhaps this year.
Solar PV paired with energy storage at scale could be provided to utilities at just US$0.10 per kilowatt hour, using advanced battery technology, one manufacturer has claimed.
Japan-headquartered NGK Insulators is the manufacturer of the NAS sodium sulfur battery, used in grid-scale energy storage systems around the world.
While Brexit – the impending departure of the UK from the European Union – looms, bringing uncertainty into the country’s economy and international relationships, the role energy storage will play in a decentralised, low(er) carbon and more flexible energy system at least seems a little more assured than it did before.
